Hunger of the Heart

By Robert Milburn

Any family that’s been visited by mental illness knows how hard it can be. The pain is wrenching, and the search for a treatment can be exasperating. That’s especially so with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, because they’re often coupled with depression, anxiety and even drug use.

Enter Balance, which was started in 2009 to provide patients with a safe, intimate environment for treatment. The New York-based center offers intensive outpatient programming, as opposed to live-in residential treatment, long the norm for serious cases. Many patients come for five days a week and eventually transition to three nights per week. The programs, designed for groups of eight, mix traditional psychotherapy and nutrition with newer techniques like art therapy and yoga. It all adds up to an appealing alternative for families of means. The tab for three months, the typical treatment period, can exceed $25,000, and Balance doesn’t accept insurance.

Balance was just the ticket for former patient Whitney McMullan. She was diagnosed with anorexia in her late 20s but had struggled with the disorder since high school, when intense control issues and restrictive eating crept into her lifestyle. McMullan kept very little food in her apartment, except one chocolate bar and when she was hungry or stressed would walk into the kitchen to look at it. “I felt better knowing that it was there and I wasn’t eating it. And that meant I had control over at least one part of my life,” she says. She also remembers sitting in a psychotherapist’s office, years before her diagnosis, so stricken with anxiety that, for two months of appointments, she mostly stared at her toes, unable to connect with the therapist.

Blance

Balance’s yoga room.

Before a recovery finally took hold, McMullan was in and out of five other treatment centers of various levels of care. “I just wasn’t ready to get better,” she says, and it was difficult to connect emotionally with the rigid 12-step-style therapy programs in which she enrolled. Those programs forced McMullan to finish her plate or risk the demoralizing experience of falling back into a lower stage of treatment. But a traumatizing experience at a Chicago hospital changed everything; McMullan was force-fed to keep her weight up. “At that point, I knew this was not what I wanted my life to be about,” she says.

Still, an effective treatment eluded her. Even after completing an extensive residential program, she hid her disorder. “I kept it a secret because I was scared of outing myself. It was tough to admit to people who I knew that I’d been away in a residential program for six months,” she says.

When she came home to New York, McMullan enrolled in Balance. At last, she began a true recovery.

Balance was started in response to rigid treatment methods in the Northeast, says founder Melainie Rogers, a registered dietician who had suffered from an eating disorder herself. At many centers in the region, Rogers says, patients are sectioned off in sterile hospital wings, forced to follow strict meal plans and traditional therapy regimens. This structure works for some people, but others require something more relaxed and varied. “It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion—we need to find the appropriate approach for each client,” Rogers says. For example, she says, 50% of bulimics are responsive to cognitive behavioral therapy, which addresses dysfunctional emotions. “But that also means 50% aren’t,” she says.

So Rogers spent a month visiting treatment centers in California, where she admired “cutting edge,” new treatments, and brought back the best of what she saw to Balance. Coming off the elevator to Balance’s 11th floor space is telling of that philosophy. The New York City loft space features the original tin ceilings and brick walls but with splashes of warm greens, yellow and blues. Skylights shine an inviting brightness. With bamboo shoots, Buddhas and framed Japanese calligraphy, the center has the feeling of peaceful spa.

Balance’s day program, from 8 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Monday to Friday, mixes intensive individual and group therapy with meals, art therapy, yoga and other holistic approaches. That includes the “Supermarket Challenge,” in which patients travel to supermarkets to pick out food for lunch. This seemingly everyday task can be overwhelming, Rogers says; patients either don’t buy anything at all or buy too much and binge. The goal is to introduce routine and make the experience comfortable. Another key session is a once-per week “multi-family group” that combines family members and patients for one large session. Families learn from one another’s experiences and talk through underlying emotional problems while probing common misconceptions.

Balance’s evening program runs three nights a week from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and provides group therapy, meal support and biweekly family group sessions. On certain nights patients are walked to local restaurants, helping them incorporate local dining out into their lifestyle. Each of Balance’s programs treat eight women, but a weekly men’s group was launched last month and a four-week adolescent outpatient is on the way. Balance charges $15,000 a month for its day program, with a minimum commitment of 4 weeks, and $7,500 for intensive outpatient treatment, with a 6 week commitment.

Dr. Judith Brisman, a psychologist and eating disorder treatment specialist, maintains a private practice in New York City and has referred many of her patients to Balance. “I’ve been impressed not only with the individualized treatment of patients, but also with the intelligence of her staff. This is a first class facility,” she says.

Former Balance patient McMullan, for her part, now speaks openly about having a disorder and even sees it as a source of strength. At 31, she has earned a master’s degree in clinical therapy and works at a treatment center for people with eating disorders. She puts it like this: “Now, I am more comfortable with the messiness of being a human being.”

About Penta

Written with Barron’s wit and often contrarian perspective, Penta provides the affluent with advice on how to navigate the world of wealth management, how to make savvy acquisitions ranging from vintage watches to second homes, and how to smartly manage family dynamics.

Richard C. Morais, Penta’s editor, was Forbes magazine’s longest serving foreign correspondent, has won multiple Business Journalist Of The Year Awards, and is the author of two novels: The Hundred-Foot Journey and Buddhaland, Brooklyn. Sonia Talati is Penta’s reporter about town, both online and for the magazine. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal and various television station affiliates around the country. Sonia has a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.A. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.